Prosecutors in St. Louis have charged two men after they hit and ran over a 17-year-old girl who was acting as the flag girl for their illicit street race. Now associates of one are trying to defend him online.

Police say 19-year-old William Mack Sapp was starting a race in a gray Mitsubishi Eclipse on Sunday night in downtown St. Louis against a Chevy pickup driven by 19-year-old Trenton Pinckard when Sapp's car hit the flag girl, knocking her under the wheels of Pinckard's truck.

Both racers fled the scene after the accident. The 17-year-old is in serious condition in a St. Louis hospital.

While both men were charged with felony counts of leaving the scene of an accident, Sapp also faces a felony assault charge. And friends of Pinckard have taken to Facebook to defend him, with one saying Pinckard didn't realize there had even been an accident:

I talked to his parents and friends and this wasn't his fuckin fault, this guy in his Mitsubishi that he was racing had his car completely turned to the right and he hit the flag girl and she flew under trents truck and thought it was just a bump and kept racing with the faggot in the Mitsubishi

Downtown St. Louis has a huge street racing scene, one police say they struggle to control. Hundreds of vehicles show up on the weekends in the area where this accident happened, and as videos show, spectators get close enough to the action to make other incidents likely.